The present invention relates forming authenticated images on labels.
Heretofore images of high quality have been produced by thermal printers. In a typical thermal printer an image is formed in three passes. First a dye donor having color such as yellow is placed in dye transfer relationship with a receiver and then the dye donor is heated in a pattern corresponding to the yellow portion of an image to be completed. Thereafter, cyan and magenta portions of the image are formed in a similar fashion. The completed color image on the receiver is continuous tone and in many cases can rival photographic quality.
In one type of thermal printer, which prints colored images, a donor contains a repeating series of spaced frames of different colored heat transferable dyes. The donor is disposed between a receiver, such as coated paper, and a print head formed of, for example, a plurality of individual heating resistors. When a particular heating resistor is energized, it produces heat and causes dye from the donor to transfer to the receiver. The density or darkness of the printed color dye is a function of the energy delivered from the heating element to the donor.
Thermal dye transfer printers offer the advantage of true xe2x80x9ccontinuous tonexe2x80x9d dye density transfer. This result is obtained by varying the energy applied to each heating element, yielding a variable dye density image pixel in the receiver.
Thermally printed images are used in a number of different applications. In one of those applications, so-called xe2x80x9csticker printsxe2x80x9d are made on a receiver and arranged so that they can be peeled off and individually pasted onto another surface. However, these stickers are not used in situations, which require that they be xe2x80x9cauthenticxe2x80x9d. By use of the term xe2x80x9cauthenticatedxe2x80x9d it is meant that the image can indicate to a viewer or a reader with a high degree of certainty that the image has not been counterfeited.
Thermally printed images have an advantage over other forms of printing in that smaller number of unique prints can be made on a cost effective basis. Product safety and brand protection standards dictate that one of the most important areas of protection or authentication is the product label. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,136,752 discloses a thermal printer to make postage stamps which uses a receiver having authenticating marks, the disclosures of which arc incorporated by reference.
Businesses throughout the world lose substantial sums to non-authentic products bearing labels that are counterfeit. With the advent of inexpensive digital printers it is possible to counterfeit labels of premium products thus creating revenue losses to bonafide manufacturers, and potential dangers to the public in terms of low or no performance of the product as in the case of pharmaceuticals for example. In other cases labels are used to indicate that a product or object has undergone and passed or failed certain inspection by is approved or bonded authorities or their agents. In these cases it is very important that labels are authentic.
It is an object of the present invention to produce an authenticated image, which can be used in applications such as secure product labels of different shapes and sizes.
This object is achieved in a method of forming authenticated secure images on labels comprising the steps of:
(a) storing in memory a number of different selectable label sizes and shapes;
(b) selecting an appropriate label size and shape from the memory for a particular image;
(c) moving a colorant donor clement having a colorant into transferable relationship with a receiver, the colorant donor element includes marks which authenticate a particular image and having colorant over such marks;
(d) transferring colorant onto the receiver in accordance with the representation of the particular image and marks in the colorant donor element and the size and shape of the selected label to form authenticated images in the receiver; and
(e) cutting the images on the receiver into the selected shape to form a plurality of labels each having an authenticated image.
The present invention provides secure product labels having different shapes and sizes. Furthermore it neither provides a size and shape adjusting step including sizing the image so that it forms a justified image on a given label size and shape.
An advantage of the present invention is that an image is authenticated by marks transferred to the receiver.
An advantage of the present invention is that images can rarely be produced which are authentic and which prevent counterfeiting, misuse or fraud.
A feature of the present invention is that authenticating marks can be formed on a receiver as part of the printing process. This authenticating information can be in the form of a bar code, an official seal, alphanumeric data or encoded digitized information
Another feature of the present invention is that it facilitates the design of images to be authenticated such as secure product labels and documents.